By Tom Robinson
Published:
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 4:30 PM EDT (Charleston Mercury)
It’s a good thing that the collection of the Chapman paintings of War Between the States batteries now on display at the Gibbes Museum captures the heroic defense of Charleston. Precious little is being done to preserve those batteries. Shame on any Lowcountry denizen who professes to be an advocate of preserving the South’s history — especially in a city rabid about preservation — and yet lets it be trampled literally under our indifferent feet.
South Carolina, fresh off its significance in the War of Independence from the British, quickly wore the mantle of instigator of the War Between the States. When one such state declares itself to be a sovereign nation and exercises its rights to secede from the union, it tends to draw attention to itself — and of course SC was not the only one to try this, but it was the first to run far with the idea. When such, new nation starts lobbing mortars onto Union troops at Fort Sumter to make its point crystal clear, it draws boatloads of Yankee soldiers who beg to differ. They came into the mouth of the harbor to challenge Forts Moultrie and Confederate-occupied Sumter. But they also came from the south across Seabrook Island and camped en masse on the edge of James Island. And they charged from the north at Sullivan’s and Long Island (now the Isle of Palms). It was smaller batteries that assumed the daunting task of stopping the onslaught.
Conrad Wise Chapman was the son of his artist aristocratic Southern father and spent most of his youth in Italy. At the outbreak of the war, he enlisted in a Kentucky regiment, was wounded at the battle of Shiloh, and later was transferred to Charleston. While he was here, General P. G. T. Beauregard assigned Chapman to create a pictorial record of the Confederate defenses surrounding Charleston Harbor.
The subject matter for each painting was sketched in Charleston between September 1863 and March 1864. The finished paintings were later created in Rome, where Chapman was on furlough visiting family from April to December 1864. When completed, the series of 31 small paintings were eventually sold to Granville Valentine of Richmond, and later to the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, known today as The Museum of the Confederacy.
The concept of embedding journalists in military units to report is certainly not unique to the Iran and Afghanistan wars as many 21st century observers might think. Artists and scribes have been covering battles for eons. According to Gibbes chief curator Angela Mack, the Civil War was in its day, however, the largest patron of artists and photographers ever employed to record a war.
Batteries, unlike palmetto log or brick forts, were temporary earthen works. They were essentially mounds of dirt shaped into forward-facing walls with a scooped-out center. Depending on how you view the war, you might note that most were constructed by slaves to prevent Yanks from bringing their abolitionist doctrine to the South; others might say everyone pitched in to defend the homeland — some far more willing than others.
The original line of battery defenses preceded the original April 1861 battle, perhaps dating back as far as Revolutionary War defenses. They tended to blanket the shores of the immediate harbor islands and nearby barrier islands. After 1863, a second line — the New Line — was added along James Island to keep the ever-increasing Union troops from marching on Charleston from the South. The batteries had names derived from their geographical placement or current commander. Over time the names changed and even learned historians have trouble identifying some of them today.
Finding familiar big forts Moultrie and Sumter is no problem. Amateur war fans attuned to the prestigious museums’ curatorial quality or Disney-quality multi-media presentations of other war theaters such as Gettysburg or Shiloh might be disappointed in the James Island Civil War battery tour. Yet the excursion, run by J & G Tours (www.jandgtours.com), is a real eye-opener. It starts at McLeod Plantation and ends with a Gullah meal and battle reenactment at the Sol Legare Community Center near Folly Island. Owner Paul Hedden is a Yankee transplant from Buffalo, New York. His deep interest in the Civil War and respect for the enormous loss of life on both sides of the conflict compelled him to search out the considerable history on James Island. He was surprised how much history was concentrated in such a small space and disappointed — even miffed — that Charlestonians have not done more to preserve the batteries and other sites … or even acknowledge they ever existed.
The McLeod Plantation house and nearby slave cabins are a decaying mess. Fortunately, the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission recently acquired the property and will likely preserve or restore it. The battery sites will not be so lucky. Many of the batteries (Batteries Glover, Gregg, Simkins, and Batteries 1-4 of the new Line, for instance) have already been swallowed by marshland, dissolved by shifting barrier islands or developed as home sites. Many are on private property and have been invaded by trees and vines. If you trekked through the jungle down to Battery Cheves, you would be hard pressed to recognize the earthworks at all. The trees that invade it also protect it.
Those batteries not inundated by plant life tend to erode with the rains and wind. Battery 5 of the New Line, for example, is starting to deteriorate. Battery Means is visible. Well, visible as the 11th tee box at the Country Club of Charleston. Battery Lamar was the scene of some of the worst casualties in the War. Some 800 soldiers were killed and, according to military documents, buried in a mass grave. The grave is unmarked and probably lies beneath houses built adjacent to the site. Now a State Park, it has just a few displays and markers, and the sparse remains of the “bombproof,” a semi-entombed explosives arsenal.
An encampment at Artillery Cross Roads, located at what is today the intersection of Secessionville Road and Fort Johnson Road, once housed a Confederate hospital, Union prisoner of war camp and supplies depot. Despite its strategic importance, there isn’t even a marker there today.
As houses were built on the bucolic settings that once served as defenses, residents have come to live with a tenuous connection to the history beneath their feet. Siegfried Oliver is aware of the history. He looks across Clark Sound to Secessionville. He has found .40 and .50-caliber Civil War-era lead bullets embedded in a tree in his yard. He found amber glass of the period in the mudflats in front of his home. Surrounded by artifacts, he was uncertain if his home at the end of West Ocean View Drive sits atop the Battery Haskell painted by Chapman and thought to be located there. (Perhaps, a local scholar or history buff will advise the editor on this topic.)
Across town at the Breach Inlet separating Sullivan’s Island from Isle of Palms, there once stood a number of batteries dating back to Revolutionary War time. Battery Marshall, one of the sites depicted in the Conrad Chapman painting at the Gibbes, is marked by a plaque near the bridge. The actual site of Battery Marshall, from which the C.S.S. Hunley submarine was launched, is probably the point of land now occupied by two mansions.
There are the Civil War Battlefield Trust and other preservation societies working to save such historical sites. But time is of the essence. Hopefully the sesquicentennial will focus attention on the plight of the Charleston Batteries.
In the meantime, go see the marvelous exhibit at the Gibbes Museum (April 8-July 10). The showing is remarkable for many reasons; in particular, the MOC has the complete collection on loan for the first time outside its own walls, so this is a special event for all concerned. (Show your gratitude to the gracious MOC by purchasing a giclée print; see below how to order.)
Conrad Wise Chapman may be resting peacefully, knowing his paintings will preserve this piece of history — or rolling over in his grave that they did not spur us to action.
